Students Of Success

If you ask me how much Bobby will sell this month, there is only one way to tell. It isn’t by what Bobby wrote on his forecast sheet. However, with the right information, this is an equation I can get into. If we run the sales activity numbers, we can pretty accurately determine where Bobby will end up this month, quarter and year. As the numbers and ratios change so will the final results. This can be exciting, when we are interested in managing sales and our business through sales activities.

Sales activity numbers are an important indicator of success and failure. The problem associated with calculating sales activity is that many salespeople and sales managers don’t keep track of the vital numbers to make the analysis. The numbers aren’t that difficult to track but many people are afraid of what the numbers will reveal. There is a dark side to numbers when used to point out only the negatives.

Let’s go back to old early algebra scenarios. We ask Bobby how many sales contacts it will take him to reach 50,000 dollars in sales this month. We could calculate this out, if we knew how many contacts it takes Bobby to get an appointment. This will lead us to his average sale. If we know what these numbers are and apply them to the sales formula, we have our answer.

Improving Success Through Ratios

The great thing about numbers and ratios is they can tell us where Bobby needs help and support. We wouldn’t normally have this unless we have Bobby’s contact numbers to calculate his success ratios. If it takes Bobby 30 telephone contacts to get one appointment, the numbers tell us that Bobby is at a very low 30-1 ratio. If this was his baseball batting average, we wouldn’t want him on our team. Bobby would be in a terrible slump and in serious trouble. Now we can look at several things, his telephone script, and the quality and type of the contacts on his telephone list. Perhaps the timing of his telephone calls and the tone and rhythm of his voice needs work too.

The good news is that Bobby only needs a few hits to improve his ratios. All of a sudden Bobby is looking pretty good. It usually doesn’t take much to make this transformation. If we don’t have the numbers, we won’t know where we are and what our ratios can tell you.

What Is A Good Ratio For Your Sales Team?

Keeping track of your sales and contact numbers is an easy thing for some people and difficult for others. Those that know them have an advantage. ACT! is a great tabulator for this. If you examine your numbers and ratios, they will tell you where you need improvement and where you are awesome.

Steve Martinez is a Sales Management Growth Strategist and Founder of Selling Magic. His organization teaches businesses how to automate and customizing CRM solutions with the best practices of sales management for increased profits. http://www.sellingmagic.com

Why A Betting Exchange Offers You The Key To Successful
Gambling

–> Introduction

Too many gamblers are still living in the ‘dark ages’ and will
only ever place a bet with a traditional bookmaker. They either
can’t be bothered to learn how the exchanges work or simply
don’t realise the features and value that can be had when
betting within an exchange environment.

Believe me, using a betting exchange is very easy, and if you
are not already using at least one exchange you should join one
immediately after reading this article…

I’m not saying that a betting exchange should be used for all
your betting. There will still be occasions when a traditional
bookmaker will offer more desirable odds than those that are
available on the exchanges. However, in the majority of cases
you will find better value on the exchanges and additionally
there are other VERY IMPORTANT features that only the betting
exchanges offer. More on this later…

–> So What Is A Betting Exchange?

Put very simply, betting exchanges are a secure place where
members of the betting public can exchange bets with each other
anonymously, at odds that they specify themselves. The exchange
companies simply act as the ‘middleman’ and match peoples bets.

As there are no bookie margins to factor in, prices are very
often more desirable. The betting exchange companies make their
money by taking a commission payment on your winning bets. This
is usually in the region of 3 - 5%, but even taking this into
account, it’s very common to find better prices on the exchange.

The cumulative effect of better prices when combined with a good
staking plan, can make the difference between you generating a
healthy profit or a bad loss. Using an exchange does not mean
you will automatically win more frequently! You still have to
find good value winning bets yourself or via a professional
tipster but it’s the effect of getting a better return on your
winning bets that will boost your betting bank and protect you
during losing streaks.

Most people use the betting exchanges on the internet, but you
can also place bets on the telephone.

–> Betting Exchange Advantages

As well as regularly finding better prices when backing a
selection, exchanges also give the gambler some other very
important advantages over traditional bookmakers.

–> Some of the key advantages are:

1) The ability to LAY a selection if you think it will not win.

2) The ability to BACK or LAY a selection to be PLACED. (This is
very different to the well know Each Way bet offered by bookies
and can be very powerful).

3) Betting IN RUNNING on many events INCLUDING HORSE RACING.
This can give you many advantages and opens the door to new
methods that may secure you more profits.

4) If you are very successful, you will not have the exchange
company threatening to shut your account down.

5) The ability to TRADE on price movements in betting events to
guarantee yourself a profit regardless of the result.

6) Arbitrage Opportunities. Bookie and exchange price
discrepancies often allow you to take a NO RISK bet.

Those are some of the key benefits of using a betting exchange
and I will dig deeper into these and explain how you can use
them to your advantage in future betting articles.

For the remainder of this article, lets concentrate on point 1,
LAYING a selection to Lose.

–> LAYING To Lose - A Major Advantage Of The Betting
Exchanges

Probably the most important feature of a betting exchange is the
ability to LAY a selection. But what does laying a selection
mean?

Laying a selection is often referred to as ‘Playing the role of
a bookmaker’. Like a bookie, you offer a price against a
selection / event happening (eg. a certain horse to win a race
or a football match ending as a draw). You only do this if in
your opinion there is a great chance that the horse won’t win or
the football match will not end as a draw. The betting exchanges
simply match your lay bets with other customers who think the
opposite of you (eg they think the horse will win or the match
will end as a draw).

–> Lay Liabilities

The odds that you offer determine how much money you will need
to ‘pay out’ if the selection actually wins (just like the
bookie does when you have a winning bet with them). So if you
were to place a lay bet of £10 at 5.0 (4/1) against a selection,
you would be liable to pay out £40 from your account if that
selection won (The other punter gets their £10 back plus £40
profit). If however, the selection does lose you get to keep the
£10 staked by the other punter (just like the bookies have done
with all your losing bets all these years!). It’s as simple as
that.

Now, you might be thinking ‘great, I’ll simply lay all the rank
outsiders and clean up’. STOP! Don’t even go down this route. If
you keep placing lay bets on selections trading with very high
odds (eg 50/1), you will win regularly but when 1 of them comes
first you will probably wipe out all your winnings and more! A
single £10 lay bet at 50/1 would see you liable for paying out
£500 should the selection win!

Therefore, I strongly recommend that you decide upon a sensible
upper limit for lay odds and stick to it no matter what. Just
think about how many favourites get turned over in horse races
every day of the year that are perhaps available to lay at very
short odds like 1.5 (1/2). Your liability on a £10 lay bet at
these odds is only £5, or £50 on a £100 lay bet. I like to keep
my lay bets at odds below 4.0 (3/1) but that’s just my own
personal choice but it gives you something to go on.

–> Flexible Odds / Placing an Order

The odds you offer obviously need to be realistic in order to be
matched, but if you are not happy with the current price being
requested by other punters you can simply place an ‘order’ in
the exchange at your odds and hope that somebody eventually
accepts your offer. (eg you may feel that the current price of
3.0 (2/1) is too high a price to lay a certain selection, so
offer a lay bet at 2.75 (7/4) instead). If your lucky the price
may well be matched. If the event starts without your lay bet
being matched, your bet is simply cancelled so you gain/lose
nothing.

–> Summary

Lay Betting might sound very confusing to the exchange newbie,
but believe me it soon becomes very straightforward and you will
find yourself laying selections much more frequently than you
think. Let’s be honest, it must be easier to pick a horse you
feel will definitely lose in a average 12 runner race, than find
the single winner!

Well that’s it for part 1 of my betting exchange articles and
all that’s left for me to say now is that if you don’t already
have at least one betting exchange account, please open one
right now. It will only take you five minutes and you’ll soon be
thinking ‘How did I ever bet without using an exchange’?

For your convenience, I have included here a link to BetFair<
/b> which is currently the most popular betting exchange. If you
decide to only have 1 betting exchange account, then I strongly
recommend it is with BetFair.